Doran
Doran, often referred to as Doran the Dragonlover by Deltorans and Dragonfriend by dragons, was a famous explorer of Deltora. Considered a madman during his time travelling, it was widely believed that he had perished. However, to his horror, as Lief discovered, he had been enslaved by the Shadow Lord, forced to be the guardian of the creature he had been attempting to destroy. History Early life Doran was born around the late reign of King Brandon and the early reign of Brandon's son Lucan. He roamed the land far and wide, gaining the respect of many people, both Deltorans and foreigners alike, despite his reputation as being unkempt, ill-mannered and blunt. He was said to be a man "of the land" so much that he earned the respect and, eventually, friendship of all seven tribes of dragons (something unheard of as dragons kept very much to themselves and their own respective tribes conversing only rarely with any human). Dragons were looked upon with fear, and too often hatred, due to a general lack of knowledge and understanding. However Doran was welcome among each tribe as family earning the name "Dragonfriend". Expedition Taking clues from a number of "Tenna Birdsong Tales", such as The Tale of the Pirran Pipe, The Seven Goblins and The Girl with the Golden Hair, Doran planned an expedition to the Os-Mine Hills in the north of Topaz territory originally looking for a dragon's den and upon finding it, he discovered in its depths a tunnel leading to the lands of the banished and fabled Pirrans. He visited them several times, told them of Deltora and the Shadow Lord and brought at least one of the three groups of Pirrans fire. The Pirrans possessed strong magic and could magically transport people through solid earth to the surface world and that is how Doran returned from their lands. They would row out in their boats to a place west of Keras and send Doran to the land above, usually near the River Tor in the territory of the Emerald. He would reappear in the brush below Dread Mountain and walk to the river bank where he waited for a boat that he could sail to Del in. Doran kept his knowledge of the Pirran underworld secret and in return they gave him a soul-stone, a magical stone that let him remember everything despite the power of the underworld seas to forget. By touching a soul-stone, you can see all your memories stored in it, inside your mind, and that was what happened for King Lief the he touched Doran's soul-stone, his mind was filled with pictures and images, which was memories of Doran. The pictures were of wild and beautiful places. Thousand pictures of faces. The secret of the underworld. And his memories of flying with dragons. The first time Doran came to the Pirran caverns, he never reached Keras. The Plumes found him drowning in the Topaz sea. They saved him, but sent him straight back to the surface. Doran drew a map of the Pirran isles, and the secret underground cave system and sea in which they lay. This map lead Lief, Barda and Jasmine to the three isles of the Pirran tribes in their search for the three pieces of the Pirran Pipe. Lief saw this as he picked the stone up and put it in Doran's grave at the harsh windy rock that pointed towards the Isle of the Dead, where the Sister of the West had been destroyed. It was a bit far away. The grave only contained Doran's silver bottle and the soul-stone. Doran was wise, clever and strong, both in will and body. In his younger years he was a great adventurer and explored the land in depth. Doran was very much aware of the danger that the seven Ak-Baba posed, particularly to the dragons. They were often seen hunting solitary dragons, attacking in a pack and retreating when the odds were unfavorable. Whilst some Deltorans welcomed the slaughter of the dragons, Doran understood that the dragons were connected to the land and tribes and the land would suffer greatly if the dragons were lost. When the land was young, before the rise of Adin, the land was called "Land of Dragons" due to the many hundreds of dragons in each territory. However with the constant Ak-Baba attacks, each tribe was whittled away to one last dragon of each tribe. Doran secretly convinced the last seven dragons to sleep until the skies were safe again, so as-to preserve the noble race of dragons and deceive the Enemy into thinking the dragons were truly gone. Last expedition After returning from a sea voyage mapping Deltora’s nearest islands, Doran was commissioned to write a travel guide to Deltora. He received a personal message from King Lucan, explaining that such a book written by Doran would be respected by people because of his reputation as an explorer. A travel guide would benefit the Deltoran people and visitors coming from oversea. Doran’s first impulse was to refuse, but when Lucan told him in his note that his son, Prince Gareth, would benefit from reading about the land he would one day govern, Doran could not pass up the opportunity. Doran was told that he could write he traveled and he was given enough funds to make a complete tour of the land to make sure the information was fresh. Doran wrote an introduction to his book in a room at The Seafarer Tavern. Doran began the book by talking about the Belt of Deltora, and explaining the relationship between the gem territories and Deltora’s dragons. He described dragons in detail and talked about their curious behavior. Doran began his journey in the Topaz territory. He wrote about the palace of Del, and about the city itself. Longing for open space Doran left Del and traveled north to the Os-Mine Hills. High in the Hills he wrote while the sun was setting about his encounter with a Topaz dragon. Doran had told the dragon that he was glad to find him alive but it had told him that many others of his tribe had been slain by Ak-Baba. The dragon had not seen a single member of his tribe since the last full moon. Doran left for the Forests of Silence as soon as he had enough material on the Hills. He was eager to see if any dragons in the Forests had survived. Doran found no dragons, and for several days he neglected his book because of it. Not feeling like sleeping, he wrote his notes about the Forests from a high tree in End Wood. Doran managed to get some sleep after finishing his notes. Doran traveled north to the Ruby territory, where he stopped to rest in The Jolly Goat inn. He had privacy to write in his book, since the other guests were in the bar where a darts competition was taking place. Doran had roast chicken and some of the inn’s excellent ale, and wrote in front of the fireplace while it rained outside. At dawn he left Ringle and traveled to the Painted Plain. He wrote about the wildlife and plants of the Plain. Doran traveled from the Painted Plain to the town of Broome where he took the rest of the day to write about the town and its manners. He wrote about the infamous Capricons whose city Capra once stood where Broome is. They had since settled in the hills around Broome and resented humans. At dawn Doran set out towards Dragon's Nest. Walking along the shore he saw his first Ruby dragon of the trip. Doran saw the dragon fly down and hover above the water not far from a fishing boat. The fishermen were frightened angry. A large sea serpent rose over the boat and the dragon caught it and flew away with it. When Doran came to Dragon's Nest, a favorite haunt for Ruby dragons, he found only one dragon there, the same that had saved the fishermen earlier. Doran returned to Broome before sunset. Doran spent a week in Broome, resting and enjoying the town’s company. He left Broome and traveled east over the Capricorn Hills, and took the Mountain Road to the far north until it was time to turn south down the Golden Way to visit the city of D'Or. By going about it this way he was hoping to see more Ruby dragons. He slept under the stars, since weather was fine. Doran was camped by a stream outside the village of Purley. He had had much to think about and had neglected his book. That night it he made up for lost time by writing notes on the Ruby North, under a full moon. He had seen no more Ruby dragons, which worried him. After some time on the road Doran reached the city of D’Or and rented a room at the Light-on-Water Inn. He bathed in warm scented water. He ate soup, bread and fruit from the D’Or orchards. Here he had bought a mare named Pearl from the famous horse-breeders there. Doran wrote about the great golden city from his room’s terrace at the Light-on-Water. Doran was not much for large towns, but he found it hard not to admire D’Or. Doran wrote about the thrifty shopkeepers and the beautiful, intelligent horses bred in D’Or. Before entering Opal territory, Doran made a detour to the town of Raladin north of D'Or. He came in time to share the evening meal at their house. They talked long into the night about the declining number of Ruby dragons. The Ralads were not surprised that Doran had only seen one dragon. They believed there were two left in their territory. Ralad builders in other territories had said that the situation was just as bad elsewhere. They had written to King Lucan, and had received a reply claiming their request would be attended to when there was time. Doran could not sleep, so he wrote his notes about Raladin in a guest room at his friends' home. Doran returned to D'Or in the morning. From there he rode Pearl along the Opal Highway into Opal territory. He followed it until he reached the River Broad, then rode north along the river. He planned to follow it until it met the Mountain Road, cross a bridge over the river, and travel south over the Hira Plain to the city of Hira. At night Doran camped beside the stream and wrote about the roads in Opal territory. He slept, and at dawn rode on hoping to see an Opal dragon fishing. That evening a group of fish came to Doran at the river bank. To his shock they spoke. They were saddened by the killing of Opal dragons and begged him to save the remaining ones. They warned him not to go to the Plain, because of the increase in rats. Doran rode a day along the River Broad without seeing a dragon. Farmers here were glad that dragon numbers had fallen in the past few months. At midday Doran stopped to brew tea and threw his coat on the ground. Reaching for it he was nearly bit by a Plains Scorpion. He crushed it with his book, staining one page. That day Doran wrote about the dangers of the Opal territory. The next morning Doran saw an Opal dragon hunting in the sky above the Hira Plain. He abandoned his plan to ride north and rented a boat from a farmer who promised to take care of Pearl until Doran returned. He crossed the river and spoke to the dragon. He was the last of his kind. His father, Doran's friend, had died of grief three months earlier. The rest had been slain by Ak-Baba. The dragon had seen a Ruby dragon killed two days earlier near the border but had done nothing. Doran thought the dragons depended on each other. He believed their slaughter were a Shadowlands plot to remove the land’s protectors. The dragon already felt an evil presence inside Hira, which had been ignored by the Opal dragons. The citizens had not noticed it, being concerned with controlling the rat plague. They had failed and would soon abandon Hira. When they did, the dragon had vowed to destroy the evil. Before the dragon left he assured Doran that he would survive. Doran found Hira overrun by rats that spread disease and destroyed food. Three-quarters of its leaders had died from disease. All authority had passed to the rat catchers. Doran left the city after only an hour. He reclaimed Pearl and rode north. In his book Doran advised people to stay away from the city which he called "the City of the Rats." In the morning he reached the Mountain Road. He stopped at the town of Happy Vale to buy supplies. He entered Lapis Lazuli territory at sunset. Camping, he wrote about the territory long into the night before sleeping. He woke before dawn and rode along a track to the desert called the Shifting Sands, hoping to find Lapis Lazuli dragons there. From the wall that surrounded the Sands Doran watched a Sand Beast catch a Scorpion Lizard. Then a Lapis Lazuli dragon, whom Doran knew, swooped from the sky and caught the Sand Beast. When she was done eating the dragon came to Doran. She had only seen two of her kind in the last moon cycle. Two days earlier she had found her mate dead. She feared that she were the only one left. Doran feared that she was right. Determined to find out if the dragon situation was as bad in other territories, he told the dragon that he had to leave, but he promised to return. He wrote about his encounter with the dragon and then slept. The next morning Doran rode south to the town of Rithmere. He surveyed the town, then rented a room at The Happy Wanderer inn to write notes on it. The next day Doran rode north along the Heavenly Way and entered Emerald territory. Doran was practiced in the use of codes and employed their use in a book which King Lucan commissioned to be written for his son (which was eventually published widely to both Deltorans and foreigners alike). Knowing that Prince Gareth, the heir to the throne of Deltora in Doran's time, was to receive the original copy of his book, Doran spoke to Gareth directly, in a way he believed Gareth would understand. Throughout his book, Secrets of Deltora, Doran hid a secret letter for Prince Gareth, made up from secret sentences hidden in every chapter. However, the precious book on which Doran had pinned all his hopes was locked away in a display case, and Prince Gareth, for whom it was intended, probably never even knew it existed. He certainly never read it. It seems that the Chief Advisor, Drumm (who was secretly a servant of the Shadow Lord), simply told the King and the court that a book illustrated by Withick was too valuable to be handled - especially by a boy as young as Gareth, who was only fifteen years old at the time. Drumm did not want Gareth to read the many controversial remarks that Doran could not resist including in his text - especially his passionate defense of dragons, the protectors of the land. Doran never knew that his book had been suppressed. After delivering it, he resumed his travels, determined to carry out his plan to save Deltora's last seven dragons. Rumors that he was losing his mind were already circulating in the palace at this time, so his warnings before leaving were ignored. He learned too much and spoke too much, and within a year he had disappeared, a victim of the Shadow Lord's evil. There was no one left to alert Prince Gareth to what Doran had been trying to tell him. Doran's plan that Prince Gareth would wake the sleeping dragons failed. More time had to pass before the dragons awoke than he would have ever dreamed. But in the end a young king did put on the Belt of Deltora, banish the Ak-Baba and wake Deltora's sleeping protectors. Today dragons once again ride the wind over Deltoran skies. Doran's final entry, recorded in the fifth volume of ‘’The Deltora Annals'' reads:'' "This is the explorer Doran, writing in haste. I returned yesterday from my journey to seek the remaining dragons. In grief, I tell you that not one still flies Deltoran skies. And there is even more dreadful news. I now know why the Enemy wanted the Dragons destroyed. He had a plan that the Dragons would not have tolerated. The four sisters. In the far-flung corners of the land I heard whispers of them. If what I heard is true, the sisters of the north and east are already in place. The south, and the west, will surely be next, and I can guess where, if the rumours of the locations of the others are to be believed. Whoever reads my words, show them to the King if you can. The King, wearing the Belt of Deltora, is Deltora's only salvation now. No-one will listen to me. They think I am mad. I hurried to Del without pausing to eat, wash or sleep. To these palace fools, with their soft hands and painted faces, I look like a wild man. I must set out once more, to seek proof of what I say. Another long journey . . . perhaps my last, for I fear the Enemy is aware of me. If I do not return, seek me where the Four Sisters lurk . . ." Doran drew a map on the page opposite his words, to show where he thought the Four Sisters lurked, and that page was torn out. No doubt very soon after he wrote it. He set out to find the Four Sisters of whom he speaks. But he never returned, and no-one knew where to look for him. He was never seen again. On the night when King Lief destroyed the Enemy's crystal, it revealed a conversation between the Shadow Lord and his servant Drumm. The Shadow Lord spoke with Drumm regarding his plans to capture and enslave Deltora and his backup plan to use the Four Sisters as a last resort. Drumm worried that if a King discovered the Sisters he would set out to destroy them using the map Doran drew - which had been torn out of The Annals, torn into four pieces and hidden but not destroyed. The Shadow Lord dared such a King to try destroy them " I dare him to try, and go more quickly to his death". The Shadow Lord had also said "The upstart has the fate he deserves." indicating the horrific and ironic fate the Enemy had chosen for Doran. Doran was condemned in all eternity to guard the Sister of the West, which was the creature he sought to destroy. Death When Lief arrived at the Isle of the Dead with the Amethyst dragon Veritas, Doran asked the fate of the diamond Dragon, knowing that he was in Diamond territory. Learning of her death he was greatly distressed but was joyful once more at seeing the newly hatched diamond dragon they had found. He asked for Veritas to end his "Living-death" and to destroy the Sister that was in him. Veritas "took his breath, as he wished" and destroyed the Sister of the West. Legacy The grave of Doran the Dragonlover contained only his silver flask and a strange, gleaming many-coloured stone. These ancient objects were all that remained of Deltora's greatest explorer. The grave was in as wild a place as Doran could have wished, looking over the windswept rock that pointed to the Isle of the Dead, where the Sister of the West had been destroyed. After careful thought, Veritas had scratched the lettering upon the grave marker: "IN MEMORY OF DORAN, EXPLORER AND HERO, KEEPER OF PRECIOUS SECRETS, FRIEND TO THE DRAGONS OF DELTORA." The many coloured stone was Doran's soul-stone, gifted to him by the Pirrans, which was filled with the great explorer's memories - Wild and beautiful places. Thousands of faces. The secret seas "of the underworld. Flying with dragons . . . and through it all ran Doran's voice whispering the true names of the last seven dragons. Veritas, Hopian, Forta, Fortuna, Fidelis, Honora and Joyeu. But whispered as: "Veritas hopian forta fortuna fidelis honora joyeu... ". Physical appearance In Doran's old age, before his death, Doran was old with long white hair and grey eyes. His appearance when young is not known, except that he generally looked wild and unkempt, which led many of the more sophisticated Deltorans to believe that he was mad. Personality Doran loved dragons, and studied them too. He knew a lot about them, their culture, life, biology and a lot more that is unknown. During his travels, he wrote in the his journal, The Deltora Annals, for he could not trust the palace librarians to do it, for they introduced errors by making his words too polite and his map lines too neat. He was a very honest man, who loved the land, and this is what had gained him the respect of the dragons. Doran was wise and strong in mind and body. He was not afraid to challenge the Shadow Lord and do what he thought was right. Abilities Doran was wise, clever and strong, in will and body. In his younger years he was a great adventurer and explored the land in depth. Doran was always well organized and prepared on every one of his trips around the land. He was a wise man who knew and understood most of Deltora's dangers. He understood the close relationship between Deltora's dragons, lands, tribes and their talismans. Doran also had the ability to talk to dragons. Relationships Dragons Doran had a very strong connection to the dragons and his relationship with them was very strong. Doran displayed a deep level of respect for them and they, too, trusted him. Withick Doran was a great friend of Withick, 'a genius of many talents' and an extraordinary artist. Doran often stayed at Withick's house in the Mire. Like Doran, Withick liked to be alone, and he cared for the land. He was very learned in Deltoran history, and wrote the book'' The Belt of Deltora, after which he left the palace in protest as Chief Advisor Drumm disapproved of the book and tried to destroy all the copies of it. Doran was much younger than Withick, but said 'despite the difference in our ages, we became firm friends. We think alike.' After Doran wrote ''Secrets of Deltora for Prince Gareth, he got Withick to copy and illustrate it, in the hope that it would be too valuable to be tampered with and the prince would receive it intact. Unfortunately this was not the case. Prince Gareth Doran had spent time with Prince Gareth when the prince was quite young, and apparently they enjoyed doing word games, codes and playing other games together. He wrote Secrets of Deltora for Gareth, hoping he would read and understand the coded letter he had hidden within it and would wear the Belt of Deltora always, banish the Ak-Baba and awaken the remaining dragons. Unfortunately Prince Gareth never received the book. Appearances Deltora Quest Dragons of Deltora *"Isle of the Dead" Other *"Secrets of Deltora" Trivia *Doran's notes and final adventures are the driving force behind the third series of Deltora Quest. *Doran's journal has been published by Emily Rodda in Secrets of Deltora. References Category:Characters Category:Minor characters Category:Males Category:Guardians of the Four Sisters Category:Deltorans Category:Post-Adin Deltorans Category:Deceased